Chasing An Alzheimer's Cure

What kind of day will today be?

There are days, with this diagnosis, when you just regret getting out of bed at all. Days when you feel as if every moment is a punishment for sins you can’t even recall. How could you ever have earned this?

I’m immensely grateful to say that this was NOT one of those days!

With two full days of the supplements in her system and the even cleaner diet we’ve been on for a full week, I can honestly say that I perceive differences in her behavior and thought processes. They’re difficult to quantify as yet, but I’m confident in my impressions.

Her speech is clearer. While she will still occasionally struggle for words, it’s not as frequent, and it’s not stressing her out as much when it does happen. Yesterday, she was particularly emotionally fragile early in the day, crying quite hard a few times. But come bedtime, she remembered it as a terrific day. Today, things didn’t bother her like they had, though the subjects that had triggered her so badly the previous day never came up again (I am capable of learning from my mistakes).

In another example, fresh ideas were coming to her today. Suggestions for gifts, ideas of how to help people, and even meal concepts were coming to her almost unbidden. Like I said, nothing mindblowing or even obvious to a casual observer, but noticeable differences for someone who spends every waking hour with her. Could I be imagining it? Could I be seeing what I want to see? Of course that is possible, but I’m confident in my observations. I’ve pledged to be honest here and to report both progress and regression, and I will do precisely that.

One thing that does seem to be getting a bit worse still is her physical coordination, including eating. She has a great deal of difficulty with a fork or spoon and generally resorts to fingers pretty quickly. She’s had problems with fine motor control for some time, and that isn’t improving yet at all. Her confidence with walking and navigating stairs has improved greatly these last few weeks (with occasional regression) however. Flatware and even drinking are different stories, though. Drinking from a water bottle (when taking her pills, for example), she has difficulty tilting her head back, as if afraid to fall. She sometimes wavers and wobbles trying to get under the bottle to drink. Sipping from her tea mug can be problematic as well, as she continues to tilt it over after pulling it away from her lips. I try to be there and vigilant when she’s drinking, but there hasn’t been a spill in a few weeks. Several close calls, but nothing more.

Dr. Ross had a theory about the tremors and twitches, too. When I told her about the progression from frozen shoulder to the involuntary twitches in first the right and eventually the left arm, she asked a question: very pointedly, she asked if there had been a rash on her sides at any time during that progression. In fact, there had. Rather a bad rash at that, on both sides. She then inquired about the appearance of the breakout: was it splotchy, or generally all over? Or was it perhaps linear, like scratches?

As it happens, it was very much like scratches. In fact, my initial impression when I first observed it was that Jacquelynn had been scratching at it fairly vigorously. Dr. Ross seemed to know I was going to say exactly that. Apparently, there’s a variant of Lyme disease which can lead to frozen shoulder and twitches, and it is characterized by that rash.

Needless to say, a full Lyme workup, including Borrelia. These Lyme cells, or spirochetes, are a top causative agent in type 3 Alzheimer’s.

More evidence yet that we’re on the right track.

What kind of day will tomorrow be? It will be a beautiful day. A gift. A blessed day. Because I will be here, with my Jacquelynn, working toward a cure.